Dave Maass

Dave Maass

Senior Investigative Researcher

As EFF's senior investigative researcher, Dave Maass is a muckraker/noisemaker, covering issues related to police surveillance, free speech, transparency, and government accountability. In addition to leading deep-dive investigations, Dave coordinates large-scale public records campaigns, advocates on state legislation, and compiles The Foilies, EFF's annual tongue-in-cheek awards for outrageous responses to FOIA requests. He sometimes represents EFF in digital rights-themed cosplay at Dragon Con, and he edited EFF's first science fiction collection, Pwning Tomorrow. He also researches virtual reality as part of the team that developed Spot the Surveillance, EFF's first VR experience. Contact him with questions or information on police technology (e.g. automated license plate readers, biometric identification), prisoner rights, or public records laws.

Dave is currently Visiting Professor of Media Technology at the University of Nevada, Reno Reynolds School of Journalism.

Before joining EFF, Dave wrote for alt weeklies in every state along the southern border, reporting on everything from Texas death row to San Diego Comic-Con. He has moderated dark-horse presidential debates on public access TV; organized digital media on barely legal road rallies; performed spoken word on a British art-rock tour, and revealed human-rights abuses in Ghanaian refugee camps. His political investigations uncovered embezzlement that ultimately put a New Mexico elected official behind bars and misconduct resulting in the severe censure and fines levied against a San Diego County Superior Court Judge. His work on incarceration has been used to support civil rights lawsuits, detention system reform, and state legislation.

His investigative reporting on incarceration in San Diego County was honored with the Youth Law Center's Loren Warboys Unsung Hero Award and the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement's Contribution to Oversight Award. He has also won top honors from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia and the Society of Professional Journalists San Diego Chapter. In 2017, Dave was a recipient of the First Amendment Coalition's Free Speech and Open Government Award alongside EFF Senior Staff Attorney Jennifer Lynch and the ACLU of Southern California's Director of Police Practices Peter Bibring. He also served on the San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance Task Force from 2016-2018.

Deeplinks Posts by Dave

While the presidential election has thrown the federal government into a cloud of uncertainty, one thing is clear: EFF has never been in a better position to protect our rights on the state level in California. In 2016, we built off our previous victories around surveillance transparency, passed new laws...

A group of investors in AT&T have had it with the phone company’s collaboration with law enforcement through the Hemisphere program, in which the company facilitates police access to trillions of phone records. At the spring shareholder conference, Zevin Asset Management plans to force discussion of contradictions between AT&T’s...

EFF Fights For More Disclosure About Hemisphere Program Although the government still hides too much information about a secret telephone records surveillance program known as Hemisphere, we have learned through EFF’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits that police tout the massive database of private calls as “Google on...

For the last year, EFF has been battling to free records from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) regarding an ethically dubious research program to promote the development of automated tattoo recognition technology. The agency is months delinquent in providing a variety of information, most notably the list...

Are you scrambling for a clever Halloween costume this weekend? We've got you covered. Here are five ideas for digital rights activists planning to trick-or-treat on Monday.
Facial Recognition Face Paint Just this week we learned that facial recognition is far more prevalent among local and federal law enforcement...

Before all of this ever went down In another place, another town You were just a face in the crowd You were just a face in the crowd Out in the street walking around A face in the crowd
-Tom Petty If we don’t speak up now...

When EFF launched a campaign last year to encourage the public to help us uncover police use of biometric technology, we weren’t sure what to expect. Within a few weeks, however, hundreds of people joined us in filing public records requests around the country.
Ultimately, dozens of local...

Access Now's Nathan White, Demand Progress' Kate Kizer, EFF's Rainey Reitman, and Sen. Ron Wyden
If Congress does nothing, a new policy will take effect in less than two months that will make it easier than ever for the FBI to infiltrate, monitor, copy data from, inject malware...

If you scroll through EFF’s staff bios, you may notice a trend: we have a lot of reporters who have joined the battle for free speech, privacy, and transparency. Some worked for years in newsrooms or as independent journalists. Others studied and taught at journalism schools or worked directly for...

Over the last few weeks, a broad coalition of civil liberties and social justice organizations rained down letters, tweets, and op-eds on Gov. Jerry Brown, urging him to sign A.B. 2298, a bill to begin the process of overhauling the state's CalGang gang affiliation database.
On Wednesday, it...